Curzon Street: The former Principal Building of the Birmingham Terminus for the London-Birmingham Railway

The Principal Building of Birmingham Station, the northern terminus of the London and Birmingham Railway, was designed in Greek Revival style by Philip Hardwick and opened in 1838. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar with a lead and slate roof.

The building is approximately square on plan with three storeys and a basement. The interior is organised around a central entrance and staircase hall on the western side, which rises through the building to an octagonal lantern. As originally built, the ground floor contained waiting and refreshment rooms, the first floor housed the board room and administrative offices, and the upper floor provided further offices.

The principal entrance front faces west onto New Canal Street and is dominated by four unfluted Greek Ionic columns of giant order, rising from a podium. These support a full entablature with stepped architrave, blank frieze and dentilled cornice that continues around all four sides of the building. Above this is a blocking course, and the central bay bears a blind attic with projecting corners which, according to contemporary prints, once displayed the words 'LONDON AND BIRMINGHAM / RAILWAY' (now removed). Behind the colonnade are three bays with pilasters in antis at the corners.

The ground floor features banded rustication, with a projecting band at first-floor window-sill level, a feature repeated on all four sides. The entrance comprises panelled double doors with a fanlight above incorporating radiating metal glazing bars, topped by a large carved cartouche bearing the arms of the London and Birmingham Railway Company. To either side are sash windows of 3x4 panes. First-floor sashes have bracketed projecting lintels and shallow stone balconies with vase-shaped balusters. The second-floor sashes, of 3x3 panes, have projecting surrounds with square brackets.

The north and south flanks are essentially similar, each with three bays, a central ground-floor doorway, and sash windows to the flanks and upper floors. The northern front shows superficial indications of a four-storey hotel wing added by Robert Dockray in 1841, which was demolished around 1980.

The east front, which formerly faced the station yard, has three bays with two engaged Ionic columns to the centre, flanked by antae. The central bay features tripartite windows to each floor, while the first-floor board room window has a triangular pediment supported by brackets and a balcony. Lateral windows match the types seen on the flanks.

Stone walling extending north and parallel to the western wall of the building previously enclosed the area in front of the 1841 hotel extension. This walling features vase-shaped balusters and rectangular piers.

The entrance and staircase hall is entered from the western doorway. A later 19th-century canted wooden lobby with glazed upper walls stands immediately inside, with a similar porter's lodge to the southern wall. The open-well staircase has stone treads and circular-section iron balusters with a mahogany handrail. The eastern wall of the hall features a three-bay column screen at both ground-floor and first-floor levels. The ground-floor screen has square columns with pilasters in antis. The first-floor screen comprises two baseless Greek Doric columns with unfluted shafts but with ridges (annulets) to the lower capital, also with square pilasters in antis, and a full entablature. Doors generally retain four or six panels and original panelled surrounds, with those connecting to the entrance hall at ground and first-floor levels featuring glazed semi-circular fanlights. The former Secretary's Room at first-floor level retains its original fire surround, two rooms preserve their original cornicing pattern, and one room retains panelling below the dado.